>> Tuesday, February 3, 2015

One of the most exciting technical developments on the horizon is the next-generation OpenGL initiative. I was skeptical at first, having been underwhelmed by the release of OpenGL 3.0. But Valve is deeply involved in launching the new API, and they'll have two developers discussing the effort at the upcoming Game Developers' Conference. According to the GDC schedule, this will be the "unveiling of Khronos' glNext initiative." Very interesting.

Valve is a funny company. It isn't publicly traded and they don't advertise, so you won't hear about them through regular channels. But in addition to producing some of the best PC games ever, they're also the largest digital distributor of PC games I know of. This gives them a lot of influence in the world of games and graphics. If Valve demands hardware that runs glNext, I'm sure the hardware vendors will bend over backwards to provide support.

That said, it doesn't look like any of the hardware vendors (Intel, AMD, Nvidia) will be present for the unveiling of glNext. I'm surprised.